What Do You Say?
by oxymoronloverchronicles
Summary: Hermione finds Ron looking through the attic and she realises that maybe it ISN'T that important to know what to say. Oneshot. Ron/Hermione.


For Azure Tang. I'm sorry. I hope this explains better.

Hermione was frazzled.

There were those few times in her life when she felt like simply tearing her hair out. This happened last when Rose and Hugo were younger, but today, with Rose back from Hogwarts for the Christmas vacations, she was experiencing one of those days again. If having both her children home wasn't bad enough, Harry and Ginny were coming that night for dinner, with their children; Ron's parents were coming too and that meant that she had to somehow cook a meal worthy of Mrs Weasley's acid test _and _she had a five reports to finish for work.

To add to that, Ron had disappeared.

Hermione stepped over a Chocolate Frog wrapper, not having the energy to pick it up, and yelled, 'Ron!'

There was no reply. She couldn't hear anything except her children screaming in the background.

'Mum!' Hugo tugged on her jeans. 'Can I have your wand?'

'No.'

'Then do you give me permission to use mine?' Rose asked quickly.

'No.'

'Can _I _use Rose's?' Hugo piped in.

'_No_, Hugo.' Hermione checked in her study—no, he wasn't there either.

Rose was huffing. 'I can't believe you thought Mum would let you use my wand. Little babies like you can't be trusted with wands.'

'I'm not a baby! Mum, I'm not a baby, right?'

'Yes.'

Hugo stuck his tongue out at his sister. 'Told you so.'

Rose whipped her wand out and waved it around threateningly. 'Put your tongue in before I burn a hole through it.'

'You can't! You're not allowed to use your wand out of school!'

'Maybe. But I _can_ stick it up your nose!' Rose chased after her brother as he darted away, shrieking.

Hermione checked in the kids' room, the living area and then went back to their bedroom a last time. Then she noticed the open trapdoor to the attic. The ladder was clearly hanging down—she wondered how she could have ever missed it.

'Ron?' she called up it.

There was no reply, but she could hear boxes moving and…a sniffle?

Ron didn't have a cold, did he?

No.

Then, he was…crying?

Hermione quickly darted up the old ladder. As she emerged in the attic, she was conscious of a the musty smell of books and dust. She noticed the untidy heaps of old trunks and boxed—when was the last time they'd cleaned here?

She saw Ron's hair, bent over a book.

'Ron?'

Her husband finally turned to look at her, and she noticed he'd first dragged his cuff across his eyes, which were still unmistakably wet.

'Oh, hi Hermione.'

'Ron, are you okay?'

'I'm fine.'

Hermione opened her mouth and then shut it. She crossed over, and sat cross-legged next to him. 'What're you doing?'

'Just looking through some old stuff.' He showed her the book. It was an old photo album, of the Weasleys. She smiled down at the picture he had been looking at. It was one of Ron, Percy and the twins. Photo-Percy was sleeping in a armchair and as she watched, the twins came, armed with pink paper chains, carefully draping it over him, and then Ron dumped a bucket of water over the sleeping Percy's head.

Hermione burst out laughing as the Photo-Percy shot up and then caught hold of Fred as George and Ron ran.

Ron smiled a little too. 'We were always allied against poor old Perce. Old Head Boy used to really get to us.'

'And everyone else,' Hermione added.

'Yeah.' There was a pause. 'I miss him.'

Before she asked whom, Hermione saw Ron was now looking at a picture of Fred grimacing, his hair magicked pink—presumably Percy's revenge. 'Oh.'

'He used to really get to me, you know. And I became his target specially after the prefect thing.'

'He was jealous,' Hermione said loyally.

'Nah.' Ron shook his head, putting the album back to its box, and looking through its other contents. 'Fred and George always really thought that it was a waste of time. They always snickered about everyone in the family getting a badge, 'cept them. Mum used to bring it up and they would always laugh about it. You know what they're like.'

'Yeah.'

'They didn't give a rat's fart about it.' Ron fell silent again.

Hermione thought back, almost unwillingly, to the day Fred had had his last laugh.

'I wish he was still here,' Ron whispered, his voice thick with tears and anguish. 'I wish…he would know,' he swallowed his tears, 'He would know that Mum probably loved him most of all.'

'Ron…'

'George was almost snogging Fred old Christmas sweater the other day,' Ron said softly. 'I laughed about it. But I…guess I know…know what…he was feeling…'

Hermione froze as tears fell down her husband's face.

Never mind her eleven OWLS. Never mind that she was Head of Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry. Never mind that she was a mother, a wife and claimed to understand people and their feelings better than they did.

Hermione never knew quite what to say when someone grieved a lost loved one.

What do you say?

"I'm sorry"- many people say that. But that was like something automatic, out of the rule book: _"When some you know loses someone, say you're sorry, even if you weren't responsible for the Killing Curse someone shot at the departed"._

She wanted to say something sensible. Something calming, something that was true and made sense. Something that expressed all that she wanted to really say.

What do you say?

How do you pass on the comfort you want to? There was no potion or spell that could bottle warmth, reassurances and honesty all together and be handed over. No way to sound sincere and not phoney.

When you love someone, you say it with flowers. When you want to say hi, you smile. When you want to show that you're pissed, you frown. When you want to just be unhappy, you cried. What do you say to say that you empathise?

There was no metaphorical means of expression. Nothing that would indicate allegorical comfort and concern.

Hermione tried.

'Ron,' she began. Then paused. She took a deep breath. 'Ron, Fred and Georg Weasley's Wizard Wheezes make people laugh. I doubt its co-proprietor and founder meant for you to cry when you think of him. Fred's probably watching you, and he's laughing his ass off. He's never going to get over the fact that you got weepy over his picture, right?'

'He'd probably take my case about it now if he saw me,' Ron admitted with a shaky laugh.

Hermione sighed with relief. Maybe she wasn't so bad at comforting people after all.

'Those were the worst comforting words ever, by the way.' Ron added after a while.

Her face fell and then she sighed again. 'Well, I tried.'

'I know. Thanks, 'Mione.'

'Yeah.'

There was a loud crash and a louder 'Oops.'

'Ooohhh, Mum's gonna kill you!' The two of them heard Hugo chorus at the top of his voice.

Hermione got to her feet immediately. 'What did they do now?'

'I'll come help you. Probably should have come earlier, eh?'

Hermione paused, seeing that Ron was still half-heartedly looking through the memories. 'It's okay,' she said finally.

'Hm...' Ron stood up, taking out a trick wand. 'I'll show this to the kids. George and I stopped selling the ones that would hit you around the head, so they haven't seen one of these before.'

'Yes, Ron. Giving them another weapon to attack each other with would be a smart thing to do.'

Ron laughed. 'I wonder if it works anymore.'

Before he finished speaking, the wand flew out of his hand and with loud 'thuds' made repeated contact with Ron's red-haired head.

Hermione watched as the wand whacked on around the head. It was the kind of thing Fred or George would have loved to fix Ron up with.

Maybe Fred was watching from up there after all.

Well, that was it.

That got out all I wanted to say. I hope it was understood and got what I wanted across.

I hope you like it and if you did, make the little review button's day. You would make a button very happy.


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